


The Way You Look Tonight

by Hrafnsvaengr



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Dancing, Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff, M/M, This is my first little drabble thing so...yeah, basically that's it, enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6629278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hrafnsvaengr/pseuds/Hrafnsvaengr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Barnes dance together. No one knows. No one has to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way You Look Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely [sleepwalkerindreamersclothing's](http://sleepwalkerindreamersclothing.tumblr.com/) fault. I hope they're pleased with themselves.

Nothing had gone right. Not from the briefing to the travel to the mission itself. Okay, yes, they’d managed, barely, to retrieve the target mostly intact. But everyone had taken a beating for it, and not one of them were happy about how it had gone.

Clint had been laying down on his lumpy sofa ever since he’d gotten home. He was pretty sure one of his ribs was at least badly bent if not broken—hell, he couldn’t even manage to break his ribs properly today. Today, all in all, was shit.

He woke up from a nap he didn’t remember taking to see Bucky looking down at him concerned. Without a word, Clint pointed at his ears, “They’re not in,” he said without making a move to find where they’d landed. He was pretty sure they had landed somewhere on Fourth Street, now that he thought of it.

Bucky simply shrugged, shoving the couch toward the wall with a push, doing likewise with the coffee table, leaving the floor empty and bare in the middle of the apartment. He motioned for Clint to stand, raising an eyebrow.

“No, not right now, I don’t want to have to find them,” Clint closed his eyes and laid his arm across them, “Maybe later.”

*

The first time they’d danced, Clint had been sure Bucky was pulling his leg, trying to make a joke, and Clint was never one to turn down calling a bluff. Turns out, not a bluff. And there they’d been, dancing at one of Stark’s gala dinners, while some douchebag in a white tuxedo had mangledly crooned into a mic. The song may not have been sung well, but boy did that supersoldier know how to move.

Clint wasn’t good at dancing, and he relied on the fact that Bucky didn’t grimace when he stepped on his toes. He didn’t even seem to notice, though Clint caught the slight smirk on his face as they finished dancing and Bucky returned the favour. Just once, just one small tease of a step, and Clint knew that he was done for.

The second time they’d danced, Bucky had been cooking breakfast, dancing in that way you do when you think no one’s watching. It was the same song as they’d danced to at the gala, and Clint was smiling slightly as he watched. Finally, he cleared his throat and asked, “Mind if I cut in?”

They’d spent an hour that day dancing. The same song on a loop, over and over, while Bucky walked Clint through the steps. He’d learnt back before the war, he told him. Clint smiled, “A big hit with the ladies?” Bucky had smirked slightly and shrugged, “Not just them.”

By the time they’d got the steps down, the bacon was stone cold and neither of them wanted breakfast. They never told anyone that they danced together. It wasn’t something that needed sharing.

Eventually, as these things happen, the others found out the two were sweet on one another. They teased them, and smiled at the two of them as they sat together on the couch watching movies from the ‘30s.

And when the others weren’t around, they sometimes put on their song, cleared away the tables and couches, and simply danced. Sometimes Bucky would hold them to proper dancing, and others he would lean close and whisper the words of the song into Clint’s ear, not quite singing them, simply breathing them out in a way that never failed to send a shiver down Clint’s spine.

*

Bucky gently took Clint’s hand, moving his arm off his face. Clint opened his eyes and sighed. “Sorry, I’m just—”

Bucky shook his head and signed slowly, as he had been taught by Clint over many hours of patient instruction, “You don’t need the aids. Come dance. For me?”

With another heavy sigh, Clint stood, wincing slightly. “Okay, but just because you’re cute,” he sighed, holding out his arms in dancing position.

Without a word, Bucky moved in close, wrapping his arms gently and securely around Clint so they were pressed together chest to chest. With his head resting on Clint’s shoulder, he began to move them both slowly, less of a dance than a synchronised swaying, a shifting of weight from foot to foot as they meandered around the room.

And finally, when Clint closed his eyes, Bucky began to sing softly, the sound vibrating through their chests and bringing a small smile to Clint’s lips.

“Someday, when I’m awfully low, and the world is cold, I will feel aglow just thinking of you, and the way you look tonight…”

Maybe today wasn’t such a bad day after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is entirely without a beta, so if there's any mistakes or whatever, they're entirely mine. Lemme know if you see anything, or...you know...just ignore it, I guess? Comments make me happy, so if you feel like it, go for it. I'd love to hear what you think!
> 
> The song they're singing, by the way, is [The Way You Look Tonight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIW_Ah0wg-w) and is from the 1936 movie Swing Time with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, both of whom are amazing and you should watch everything they've been in. Just trust me, go watch old movies from the '30s. They're great.


End file.
